Dog Days of October
by faemouse
Summary: Jack hosts a barbeque, stumbles across a reminder of Daniel's life, and navigates not-comming-out to his CO. It's all just part of the greiving proccess. Spoilers for S5 'Meridian'.


Colorado is enjoying a late summer the year that Daniel dies, with deep, blue, endless skies and seventy-degree-temperatures lasting well into October, and Jack is inspired to host a barbeque. He lures twenty or so people from the SGC to his place in the Springs with the promise of burgers, brats, and beer, and if the conversation is less boisterous that barbeques past, if the party atmosphere feels more like a wake, Jack decides it's worth it. He can see the good of it in the relaxed, open faces of friends and team mates and coworkers, expressions he hasn't seen in a while through the dusting of melancholy that has lain oppressively over most of the SGC in the past year or two, and decides it's time to get the grill fired up.

He's already got the briquettes stacked perfectly in the Webber, primed with lighter fluid for quick ignition but none of the chemical aftertaste. Absently, Jack wonders if he still has those hickory chips left over from his last trip up to the cabin, when he'd caught two huge trout and decided to try smoking one. He decides hickory-smoked brats at a backyard barbeque are a little too over-the-top for his Midwestern sensibilities, pulls out the Bic lighter, and sets about lighting the charcoal.

It would be easier if the lighter had any butane in it.

Irritated, Jack tosses the lighter into the garbage next to the grill before heading back into the house. He smiles and makes small talk with people as he goes, frustration forgotten, soothed with the camaraderie of his makeshift family. Inside, the house is empty, dim and cool, and he quickly shucks off his shoes and makes his way into the kitchen. He jerks open the junk drawer and starts shuffling through all of the accumulated crap he doesn't get rid off because he's too lazy and figures he might someday find a use for it, looking for a book of matches, finding instead a double deck of cards that may or may not be for playing sheep head, spare Christmas tree lights, loose change, and half-dead nine volt batteries. There's something sticking up in the mess, a candle stick or screwdriver, maybe, that's preventing the drawer from pulling out all of the way, so Jack just shoves his hand in and rummages around blindly. With a shout of triumph, he realizes the thing jamming the drawer is actually a long, camping lighter, and he tries to extricate it but ends up pulling something else out, instead.

The worn brown leather of the glasses case is familiar and warm, and he turns it over in his hands, mapping the surface, lighter and charcoal and grilling momentarily forgotten. He thumbs the clasp open – Daniel never liked the spring-loaded ones because he said they broke too easily – and tips the simple, wire-framed lenses into his palm. Something metal tinkles on the floor, and Jack can see one of the arms is disarticulated, and remembers why they'd been dropped in the junk drawer in the first place. They'd been sitting around the kitchen table one Sunday morning, Jack drinking coffee and reading the paper, Daniel drinking coffee and trying to fix his glasses, when they'd both received calls from the base telling them to report back ASAP to assist in an emergency refugee relocation. The glasses had been quickly stuffed back into the case and thrown into the drawer, God, Jack thought, almost seven months ago. Was that it? It felt like years.

"Colonel?"

Jack looked up to find General Hammond standing in the doorway, watching him with a careful, guarded expression. It was rather unsettling to see him in his civvies, with a bottle of Coors in one hand, the other tucked casually into the front pocket of his jeans, but Jack tried not to make a big deal about it. He knew there were several airmen here today who probably felt the same way about him.

"Hey, I'm just…I needed a…lighter was dead." Jack shrugs, still clutching the glasses, reaching back into the drawer to grab the lighter. Hammond nods, sips his beer, and his gaze follows the movement of Jack's hand, which is absently worrying the bridge of the spectacles like a security blanket.

"Sure." Hammond replies. "Just wonderin' what was keepin' ya. Folks outside are getting hungry."

"Yeah, thanks. I'll just be out…soon." Jack trails off, attention once more grabbed by the glasses. He folds them closed, turns them over, opens them again, fiddles with the loose arm, thinks about blue eyes and coffee and Sunday mornings.

"Jack, are you-"

"It hasn't even been a year." Jack interrupts. "Time's supposed to fly when you're busy, but it feels like it's been years and years…" Evidently, he can't finish a sentence properly today. Evidently, all of the eloquence that rubbed off on him from hanging around Daniel for five years has started to wear off.

"Listen, son. I know you and Dr. Jackson were close." And just like that, all of Jack's good humor disappears, evaporates into nothing, and the sunny, cloudless sky that had been such a balm just a few minutes ago becomes an irritant. Gloating. Mocking. He throws the glasses and case back in the drawer, careless of their fragility, and slams it shut.

"Yeah. Close." Jack sneers at Hammond's slightly startled expression. He grabs the lighter, clicks it a couple times to make sure it actually works.

"It must be incredibly difficult-"

"Really, Sir, you've got no idea what you're talking about." Jack snaps, cutting him off. He tries to step around him, but Hammond puts up a hand, almost rests it on Jack's shoulder, decides at the last minute to lay it on the door jam.

"Would you…" And now Hammond is the one having trouble finding words, "I know you've refused to talk with MacKenzie about this, and I haven't forced the issue, but if you want to tell me about it…" He wasn't planning on extending the invitation, and even if he had he couldn't have begun to guess what Jack's response to it would be, but it certainly wouldn't have been the sharp, bitter laughter that has his 2IC doubled over and clutching his stomach.

"Colonel…" Jack straightens up, still laughing without smiling, bordering on hysterical, and shakes his head.

"No. Trust me, General," Jack says, once he manages to get himself under control, "that is not a conversation we can have."

"But…"

"No." Jack repeats, his expression going flinty, "I can't tell you a goddamn thing about my relationship with Dr. Jackson, and you really shouldn't be asking, so howsabout we just forget we ever had this conversation, and I'll go get that grill started."

"I…" Hammond tries to think of something, anything to say to that, and comes up with nothing.

"Glad we're on the same page." Jack says, and then steps past him and back outside. In the distance, Jack can see cumulous clouds starting to form, and the breeze is picking up as it cools down. He starts the briquettes on fire, fanning them with a folded paper plate to help them along, and decides that the barbeque is safe and the rain won't come until later on that night. When it does, Jack knows it will be the end of the late summer.


End file.
